unicornnews: Film industry alters piracy comms

Now this will be an interesting test of whether communicating the same message in a totally different way can really deliver substantially different results. The message is that it is wrong to pirate movies; the change in communication strategy is to thank the people who don’t rather than bad mouth the people who do. For years the movie industry has screened hard hitting adverts in cinemas and on DVDs based around the slogan “piracy is a crime”. The aim of the ads was to convince consumers that accessing films from illegitimate sources was a serious crime, and that film pirates were comparable to car thieves and their like. The problem is that as the ads became more hard hitting, they became increasingly mocked; plus there was the issue that they were being screened to people who had invariably paid to watch the film the ad preceded – ie customers not criminals.

In response to criticism of those adverts, an organisation called The Industry Trust For IP Awareness has decided to launch a totally new series of adverts thanking people who pay to access films, with the strapline “you make the movies”. The Trust says the ads are in response to research that shows that content industries will get a more positive response to communication justifying why people should pay to access copyright material, rather than relying on the legal implications for people who choose not too.

This is even more true, the Trust says, with what they called ‘Generation Y-pay’, who have grown up with a ready supply of free content online, and who need to be given reasons other than dry or confrontational legal claims as to why they should pay to access music or movies when they can easily access the same content for free from illegitimate sources.  

Discussing the new campaign, which will launch next month accompanied by a series of advertorials in The Sun, the Trust’s Director General Liz Bales told The Guardian: “With the digital revolution set to open up access to more unauthorised film and TV content, it is going to be more important than ever for people to understand the positive connection they have to the British creative industries [as consumers]. Our industry must share responsibility for showing the public the positive role they play”.

She continued: “Film and TV is the industry that we as a nation are most proud of, the challenge is that Generation Y-pay underestimates how vital they are to funding future films and TV shows. They don’t realise that without them [buying legal products] great British film and TV couldn’t get made”.

Posted Tuesday September 8 2009 by Chris Cooke

Related categories: Music & Entertainment PR